Reading and Discussion Questions for Charles Dickens's "Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison" (Ch. 7 in American Notes, 1842)

1. Prior to discussing the city's "solitary prison" in detail, Dickens
discusses a number of other public institutions in Philadelphia. Why does he
describe West's picture in the "Quaker Hospital" prior to describing his
impressions of the prison?

2. Why does Dickens employ a first-person point of view rather than the more
detached objective point of view in this essay on Pennsylvania's penal system?
Whom might he be indicating by "We" at the opening

3. Why does Dickens allude to Don Guzman in described the failed bank?

8. How does the situation of each of the prisoners described reveal the
inhumanity of the solitary system?

9. Although Pennsylvania was above the Mason-Dixon Line, and therefore a
"free" as opposed to a "slave" state, how does the penal system's treatment of
young criminals reveal inequality between the races in the American justice
system?

10. Explain the figure of speech involved in "Noble aristocracy in crime!"

11. Why do prisoners tend to look forward to the conclusion of their sentences
with apprehension?

12. Explain "When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard without.
When he is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the cell."

13. Explain why "suicides are rare among these prisoners"?

14. Why is the Silent System unlikely, contends Dickens, to reform all
criminals who have had experience of it?

15. At the conclusion, Dickens alludes to "a host of evils" associated with
the Silent System; list these.

16. "Parade before my eyes, a hundred men, with one among them newly released
from this solitary suffering, and I would point him out": how would Dickens be
able to identify that particular ex-convict?

17. Poetically, Dickens refers to the "monstrous phantoms" that the solitary
system produces, "darkening the face of Heaven": explain this
characterization.

18. What is the subtle connection between the noxious medication castor oil
mentioned at the opening of the chapter and Philadelphia's solitary system?

19. Why does Dickens early remark that he was seized by "thoughts of taking
lodgings in Mark Lane over against the Market Place, and of making a large
fortune by speculations in corn"?

20. What criticism of America is implied in "the work has stopped; so that
like many other great undertakings in America, even this is rather going to be
done one of these days, than doing now"?

21. Why is each prisoner provided with the tools (whether a last, a loom,
etc.) of a trade?

22. How does the image of a man "buried alive" function as a controlling
metaphor?

23. Succinctly state Dickens's thesis in this chapter of American
Notes.